Kate Elliott - Cold Fire

I shook my hand out of hers. “Wait just a moment.”

I charged into the chamber and right up to him as he blinked in astonishment. “Prince Caonabo, I have brought your bride but I have two things to say to you first. If you harm her or let her come to harm, I will gouge out your eyes and then eat them. That is one. As for the other, she must go to troll town in Expedition before the sun sets on Hallows’ Night. Promise me you will see that she is taken safely there until a full day has passed.”

“Perdita!” he exclaimed, eyes wide with astonishment.

Soldiers swarmed out of the alcoves and herded me back to the porch without touching me.

“That was rash,” said Bee, pulling me close as the soldiers melted away under the sting of her glare. “Cat, I shall be fine. I’m sorry to lose you, but Andevai will be glad to have you back.”

I crushed her against me, murmuring, “You must be inside troll town before Hallows’ Night falls. The maze will hide you. Promise me.”

She kissed me on each cheek and gently put me away from her. Her gaze was clear and her expression determined. “I promise you I will live.”

She went in as Prince Caonabo stepped forward to greet her. Women blocked the doors with screens of translucent muslin and lowered beaded curtains to close off the view.

I put up no fuss as the two fire mages and their four attendants ushered me to an adjoining building whose limbs and wings made it resemble a sleeping frog. We entered a small chamber meant, I thought, to be humble, but fitted with wall hangings encrusted with priceless shell and pearl beads. They left me there alone. Baskets and gourds hung from the ceiling, interspersed with unlit lamps. I sat on a mat beside a low table. A woman brought a tray with two cups and a steaming pot of pungent herbs. She did not pour but left me in darkness except for my cat’s sight that even in darkness could discern the angles and corners of the room. My skin felt inflamed, and it itched. I was tired and thirsty and hungry, and I had eaten nothing since midday and was coming to the unpleasant conclusion that while Bee enjoyed a feast with the prince, I might be held here all night in disgrace. I hesitated to sneak out since my disappearance could cause trouble for Bee. I wondered where Vai was.

The door opened. Four women entered, one sitting at each corner of the room. Their presence made my sword tremble with a pulse of cold magic. Flames leaped, and the women-north, south, east, and west-shimmered with a glow like the gilding of moonrise on still waters.

The behica entered the room.

“Blessed Tanit,” I said, more to myself than to anyone, “they are all fire banes, and you are using them as catch-fires.”

The behica measured me as Vai’s boss at the carpentry yard had once done: marked and tallied. Sitting, she poured two cups, sipped at both, and offered one to me. She lifted to her lips a cigarillo. With an intake of breath, embers gleamed red and smoke curled up. She sucked twice, the smoke quite pungent, then offered the cigarillo to me.

It seemed dangerously rude not to accept. I set the unlit end to my mouth and inhaled. The jolt went straight to my eyes, and I racked out a spasm of coughing as smoke swirled around my face. The room tilted and, as I put out a hand to catch myself on the table, settled upright once. She took the cigarillo back. I gulped down the drink to rinse the harsh taste from my mouth.

“Why have you to Taino country come?” she asked in serviceable Latin.

“Isn’t it obvious I came for my cousin’s sake? For her only?”

Licking my lips, I tasted too late the chalky flavor of the drink Juba had given me to ease the burn. Was she intending to drug me? I grasped at the shadows and pulled them tight.

But as she drew in the cigarillo’s smoke, she merely watched with interest as a cat watches the struggles of a trapped mouse. “That you came surprises me. Your feet rest on Taino earth, Perdita. Thus you are subject to Taino law.”

I tried to rise, but my legs had turned to stone. I would have dragged myself out of the room with my arms, but a tall, broad-shouldered, black-haired man blocked the door.

I knew him. He was Camjiata.

My mind produced words, but my lips remained silent.

Watching me, the behica spoke to him. “Was it your intention to send this one across the border when you know the law would compel me to arrest her? The same law that forced me to bury my son when he was bitten by a salter?”

“It was my intention, Your Majesty. I regret it, but it was necessary.”

I could not find the hilt of my sword.

“Do you truly regret it? I must wonder, given your action. I regret losing the son best suited to inherit the duho, for a day will come soon when my brother will walk to the other side of the island. My son Haubey was meant to sit in the seat of power after him.”

“You have not lost Juba. I spoke to him this morning.”

“You spoke to an opia, not to my son. My son was killed by the bite of a salter.”

“Is he dead? I thought Prince Caonabo had healed Juba. I thought the brothers put it about that Juba fled because he refused to become his brother’s catch-fire. For Prince Caonabo came late to the fire, did he not? Juba told me no one thought the twin brothers had any mage craft in them at all.”

“You misunderstood the opia’s words. Easy enough to do. Among my people it is understood that all people have the seed in them, but the seed does not flower in all people.”

“You think all people could become cold mages or fire mages if they wished?”

“You simplify. The seed may be buried deep. It may be too weak to germinate. There are many reasons some bloom and others never do. My sons showed no such power. Sometimes people close that gate of their own will. I was glad of it. Then they went hunting, as young men will do, deep in the forest in the mountains. Haubey was bitten. Sparked by the love that binds the brothers, Caonabo woke the seed in himself and healed his brother. But Haubey is still dead. That is the law.”

Slowly, slowly, I braced a hand on the table, but my torso had gone numb. I slumped against the wall, but even that was better than tipping over facedown onto the mat.

“That is the law,” Camjiata agreed. “I have delivered your exiled son as I promised. This girl likewise. Together, they provide the legal excuse you need to occupy Expedition because Expedition has broken the terms of the First Treaty by harboring people bitten by salters.”

“I acknowledge that you have met your part of our bargain. I will meet mine.”

“By the way, I want the cane she carries. It is a sword.”

“It is a cemi. It is bound to her. Why do you want it?”

“I think her mother’s spirit inhabits it. Her mother was bound to me also. I want the cane.”

“You will have a difficult time leashing a cemi that does not wish to be bound to you,” she said with a hard smile.

A knife flashed in his hand. He stepped past her and bent over me. Nothing I could do, no furious diatribe in my mind, no phantom assault by my paralyzed limbs, could stop him from slicing the loop and allowing my sword to roll away from my body out of my reach. He did not try to pick it up. He merely stepped back to address the cacica.

“We leash as we must. By the way, I have an exceptionally powerful fire bane you will be very interested in. If you can control him.”

“I should like to see this. There is no fire bane I cannot control.”

She rose, and they departed together. I grunted under my breath, straining, but I could not move. Women came in to truss, tie, and gag me. My thoughts plowed a sluggish furrow. To blink took all my effort and concentration.

A shadowy crow settled on my face, talons digging into my cheeks. I could not fight or even scream as it pecked out my eyes and ate them, leaving me blind with nothing but the sting of my fire-burned skin to tell me tales of the world. Hands lifted me into a sling. Rope abraded me as I was jostled along. The close still air within the building melted into the cling of a steamy breeze outside. As through muffling cloth, I heard a clamor of voices as drums rattled a call to battle and men cried out to weigh anchor. Alarm horns sounded far away and too feebly to matter. Then came silence.